Don’t Mess with My Beer

If there is one thing to know about Michigan, it is that you do not mess with beer here. I had thought that beer could not get more serious in between California and Colorado as meccas of hand-crafted, so micro-brewed it’s almost home brewed beer and Belgium and Germany as the lands of so old-school our monks invented the beer in the 11th century and still make it. But boy was I wrong.

I had heard about Midwest beer culture, but I had assumed it was more around the lines of some of my older family members who prefer Bud Light thanks. If we like the cheap stuff, why bother with the rest?

And I had a few friends from Michigan who drank a lot of beer, especially the craft/European genre. But they were graduate students and everyone knows they don’t represent the average population.

But you go into any bar or grocery store here in Michigan and the one thing you are guaranteed to find is a wide and varied selection of beer. Everything from Miller High Life to a Belgian Lambic. And what’s not on draft is in a bottle or a can or a pitcher or a plastic cup. And it’s not like California where you are either a hipster or an elitist if you drink a beer that doesn’t have a television advertisement. My dad was once thought of as too European centric for preferring Heineken.

So now I’m thinking I better start learning my beers. Except that everyone drinks cocktails too here. And a fair amount drink wine. I forgot that when it’s cold, you drink a lot to. At least that’s what I learned from the UK, Germany and Poland.

And as for those Midwest old-fashioned values? They are fine, as long as you have a drink in hand.